The map of global aviation has been quietly redrawn. For decades, airlines crossing Eurasia could choose among multiple routes linking Europe and Asia. Today, military conflict, sanctions, and regional instability have dramatically narrowed those options. Russian airspace remains closed to many Western carriers. Iranian airspace carries growing operational risks. Successive crises across the Middle East have further constrained the skies. As global air travel is expected to roughly double by 2042, more aircraft are being funneled into fewer viable corridors.
One of the most important of those corridors runs through a region few people outside the industry know about: the South Caucasus.
That may surprise people who associate Armenia and Azerbaijan with conflict rather than connectivity. Yet every day, aircraft carrying passengers and cargo between Europe and Asia depend on safe passage through the region. The quiet operational coordination that makes those flights possible rarely attracts headlines, even though it has become an essential part of the global aviation system.
As director general of Armenia’s Civil Aviation Committee during the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh war, I experienced firsthand how critical safe and continuous airspace management is during periods of conflict.
Politics dominates headlines, but aviation operates under a different imperative altogether. Every aircraft crossing international airspace depends on a shared commitment to safety, common procedures, and operational discipline. In aviation, misunderstanding is a matter of life and death.
That professional cooperation has become increasingly valuable as the world’s airspace has fragmented.
Much of today’s discussion about global connectivity centers on shipping lanes, ports, railways, and the emerging Middle Corridor connecting Europe and Asia by land. Those conversations deserve attention. Yet they overlook another network that underpins international commerce every day: the sky.
Every time a conflict closes a portion of airspace, airlines face longer routes, higher fuel consumption, more complex crew scheduling, additional insurance costs, and fewer aircraft available to serve passengers. According to a recent KPMG analysis, geopolitical disruption already costs the global airline industry an estimated $5 billion to $12 billion each year in direct operational impacts such as rerouting, delays, and diversions. The report notes that the true economic cost is likely much higher because it excludes cascading disruptions across airline networks and broader fuel market effects.
Those costs illustrate another lesson that receives far less attention: Connectivity depends on capacity, and capacity must be built long before it is needed.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, for example, many countries reduced their air traffic control workforce as demand collapsed. Armenia made a different decision. We retained our controllers because training experienced professionals takes years, and rebuilding that expertise cannot happen overnight. At the time, that decision appeared expensive. Today, it looks like strategic foresight.
As geopolitical events redirected more flights through the South Caucasus, Armenia had the people and expertise needed to manage significantly higher traffic volumes safely. Had we made the opposite decision during the pandemic, this vital corridor would have faced far greater constraints precisely when airlines needed it most. The effects would have extended well beyond aviation, disrupting cargo movements, business travel, and economic links between Europe and Asia.
This experience carries an important lesson for policymakers. Infrastructure is more than airports, highways, ports, and railways. It also includes the invisible systems and highly trained professionals who keep aircraft moving safely through increasingly contested skies. Airspace management has become a strategic infrastructure in its own right.
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As geopolitical uncertainty becomes a defining feature of international aviation, airlines and governments alike will need to invest accordingly. Better intelligence, stronger coordination, and resilient operational capacity have become as essential as concrete runways and modern terminals.
Most travelers crossing Eurasia will never think about the route their aircraft follows. But the fact is that millions of passengers arrive safely each day because professionals choose cooperation over confrontation and preparation over improvisation. As the world’s skies grow more fragmented, those quiet decisions have become part of the infrastructure holding globalization together.
Tatevik Revazian is vice president at Osprey Flight Solutions. She was previously director general of Armenia’s Civil Aviation Committee, becoming the world’s youngest director general of a national civil aviation authority.